Not Long at All
by Highfunctioningfangirl
Summary: A series of Labyrinth drabbles as part of an unfinished drabble challenge. Almost entirely Jareth/Sarah.
1. Beginning

**This was my foray into Labyrinth fanfiction, a couple of months ago. It was part of a drabble challenge that I never finished. I'm hoping that posting these will inspire me to finish.**

**Um. And they get better. I swear.**

**I don't own Labyrinth. If I owned Labyrinth it would have ended far differently.**

**Prompt 1: Beginning**

In the beginning it was awful. When Sarah returned to the Goblin Kingdom at the ripe old age of twenty-two, she was amazed at how much she hadn't remembered—or perhaps by how much had changed. The luster had faded from the ballroom, and Jareth's throne was threadbare. She refused to venture into the Labyrinth again, but reports from Hoggle, Ludo, and Didymus indicated further disarray.

The true change, though, the change that hurt, came from Jareth. When he showed up in her apartment he was in full Goblin King form, but once they were together in his realm, and she ruled by his side as queen, he came across as silent and grim. There was nothing cruel or stern in it, he simply behaved like a shadow.

It took Sarah some time to realize that he was afraid of her. It took even longer for her to convince him that he didn't have to be. Then they wrote a new beginning.


	2. Accusation

**This was the second drabble I wrote, and I was still getting my feet wet and developing my style for Labyrinth fic. The drabbles have a tendency to get a bit longer after this one, and generally more interesting. **

**I don't own Labyrinth.**

**Prompt: Accusation**

"You loved her," Jareth accused, staring down at his Dwarven subject. He rarely went out of his way to talk to Hoggle, but at least he remembered his name these days.

"Sure," Hoggle snorted a bit scornfully, squeezing one blue eye shut and taking aim at a fairy. Fondly he added "We all did." Jareth's responding smirk was furious underneath his preternatural calm.

"No," he growled low. "No, you loved her, Prince of Stench."

Hoggle paused his fairy-hunt to peer up at Jareth. The part of him that had been changed by Sarah, that knew that some things were more important than being a coward, threatened to bubble over, but he didn't respond with anything inflammatory. Instead he shook his head at the king, solemn and sad. Just as he expected, it didn't take long before Jareth got bored and stalked away, furious as though someone had taken his favorite toy. That was why Hoggle couldn't help but whisper accusingly as he watched the king walk away, "I loved her more than you ever did."


	3. Restless

**I really don't have much to say about this one. I like it, though.**

**Prompt: Restless**

The restless times—those are the worst. Sarah senses them coming these days. She sees them in Jareth: in the arch of his back and the manic glint in his eyes, the quiver in his hands from energy building in the closed-circuit of his body, ineffectually ripping him to shreds. Sarah prepares for the restless times as well as she can: tries to get affairs in order, steels herself for sleepless nights. When they hit she faces them head-on, like she faces everything.

The soundtrack of her nightmares used to be the silence following Toby's last scream before he descended into the Labyrinth. Now it is the sound of barely-there footfalls across the plush carpet of the bed-chamber she and Jareth share. The periods of restlessness burn through him like a fever, one that she can do nothing to abate. This isn't about her, and she can't stop it.

The Labyrinth and the kingdom at its outskirts complete her, and she can't work up the concentration to feel homesick. She has no time for it, when Jareth is homesick for a world he barely knows.

Horror pools in her middle as the footsteps dissolve into the rustle of moving wings and a window opens—the magic strong enough to swing the glass pane inward, but not enough to stop its squeaking. Jareth will return in a few hours—she tells the time on an old human watch secreted under her feather pillow—and he will be more exhausted, yet quiver with more energy, than ever. She will coax him to rest, and wipe down his brow with a delicate touch. He will drift away into an uneasy sleep, and she will be unable to follow.

Night will bleed into morning, and the restlessness will be hers.


End file.
